You Weren't Supposed to Grow Old
by Enantiosis
Summary: Blah blah what it says on the tin summaries are hard ok.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N:**_

guys guess what

i did i t

i actually finished somethign

g uys

like wow

_**You Weren't Supposed to Grow Old**_

The world blurred as the beautiful woman plucked glasses of her nose. She blinked away a mottle of muted colours and hazy edges, rubbing the lenses against her cardigan and sliding them back on. Her armchair creaked as she sank down, complaining even under her slight weight. She gazed out a window and picked absent-mindedly at loose, floral threads, the upholstery worn from years of use, much like her own body.

China was old, a used vessel, all anger and nerve had long since fled her soul. She remembered the days; she was alive, she was pure. It had been a time when she had breathed in air that seemed crisp, smelt rain and grinned, when she still looked up at the sky and felt alive. Love had been a thrill, sharp and potent, all unexpected turns and different places.

It had been years, and now her body was flat. Bones stuck out of a frail frame, and her spine was a series of knots, jutting almost sickeningly out of her back. Despite her heavy grey hair and hunched back, she stood proudly with her hair piled up on her head, a mass of intricate twists. She was still stunning.

She waited, with only silence to wait with her. Her eyes, now dim and hiding under sagging eyelids, followed dust motes lazily. She noticed them, the little things, which she had never seen before. She loved them. They were simple, and her love was simple too.

Getting up, she delicately raised herself to her feet and fumbled for her walking stick, slack hands trembling until they found the handle. Knuckles turned white as she gripped it and slowly made her way into the kitchen. If she wanted to, she could've closed her eyes and found her way on smell, hearing and touch alone. She knew where floorboards creaked, when carpet gave way to tiling, that the living room smelt like wood and musk, and the kitchen was soap and plastic. She had lived in this house for hundreds of years, so long that it was almost a part of her.

Now with a view of the garden, China sat at the dining table, head in her hands. She sat like that, shifting only slightly and keeping track of time judging by the angle of the shadows. The sun began to set, casting a warm, comforting golden glow on the room. It hit her face, illuminating half of her skin and playing with her hair, highlighting wayward strands.

Hearing keys jingle in a lock, China slid her eyes shut and let a smile drift across her face. She heard him shut the door quietly behind him and recognised the time in which he hung his hat in the entry-way. She listened to his footsteps pad over carpet and change to clacks as the soles of his shoes met the kitchen linoleum. She didn't turn around as he entered the kitchen, only sat with her head resting in her hands and her eyes shut. As he strode past to drop his keys in the dish on the counter, he trailed his fingers across her shoulders.

Skulduggery drew out a chair and sat in it, pulling off his gloves and laying them on the table, next to a glass bowl of toffees. He slid a chair out from under the table and seated himself next to her. She heard the rustle of a suit as he cocked his head and laced his fingers under his chin. With a turn of hers she cracked an eye open to see him gazing intently at her, gleaming skull just the same as it was six hundred years ago.

"I love you." He said simply.

China recalled the days when she would laugh and say 'I know.' But she had long left the silly games behind.

"I love you too. And I always will."

He picked up her limp hand, translucent skin dappled with age spots and threaded his fingers through hers. She felt the insouciance that had filled her since he had left in the morning melt away and pressed the cool bone of his hand to her cheek. Another skeletal hand reached around and encased theirs. Her eyes lifted, a small spark dancing in them as he leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead. Bone grazed over skin until her brow leant against his. A bony arm wrapped around her bony back and he held her close.

Gaunt cheeks lifted and her heart flushed with joy. Then her eyes burnt and a tear trickled down her cheek. She wanted to blink, to fight off the tears, but she didn't even dare take a breath.

"I'm going to die, Skulduggery." Her voice was quiet. Accepting.

"No, you're not." He said firmly. His wasn't.

But she could tell from the way his hands tightened painfully around hers that he knew that wasn't true.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N:

i lied its x2 finished

x2 finished combo

i feel like this chapter is kinda naff like it kills the vibe and is super confusing and i would edit it but

ahah no i wouldnt

**Chapter 2**

A warm breeze slipped through the trees, rustling dry leaves and stirring up the scent of late spring. Bees buzzed and birds flew overhead, singing charming melodies as they flittered from branch to branch. The sun beat down, making everything seem more vivid than it should have been. Skulduggery shifted in his suit. Despite the balmy day, he felt chilled to the bone.

It was too a beautiful day for what stood before him.

The stone was worn and covered in a sickly green-yellow moss. At least two hundred years old, it was a medley of stain and neglect. Skulduggery hadn't visited this graveyard since the funeral, and he sorely wished the epitaph had washed away with the rain.

"_Every man has his secret sorrows _

_which the world knows not; _

_and often times we call a man cold _

_when he is only sad_."

The soaked white satin of her dress plastered against her skin stood out so clearly in his mind, as bright as it had been on the day that it could be seen through the sheets of rain that slopped down on the dreary, grey cemetery. He remembered how China had knelt before the gravestone, the sharp bitterness of her words as she engraved the message over her body. He remembered, oh how he wished he didn't, how she had shrieked out his name, so frantically, so strangled, before she died. Before she had been shot by Lord Vile. By himself.

He looked away. At anything. He didn't want to read the rest, didn't want to return to the strawberry smell of her hair, her free laughter, how she would nudge him and say it would be alright. How she always would be by his side. He didn't want to smell her blood, too metallic for one so sweet. He didn't want to hear her scream.

"I... I don't want-"

His voice was a whimper, and it scared even him. He was dying too, he realised. He was eroding, being worn down to nothing more than a skeleton with the tatters of a voice. He didn't want to.

But she had.

"China."

The word had escaped him in a gust of exhaled air. Skulduggery had felt certain that even in death, she would be cunning. He finally understood why she had done it this way. The wave of emotions that charged his heart made it ache, and he wasn't sure whether it was from melancholy or an odd kind of happiness.

He knelt down, the crunching of dried leaves loud, and looked at the headstone. Even though the words had swum endlessly in his head for the past few hundred years, he still felt like he was reading them for the first time. How they stabbed holes in his heart, and rubbed salt into the wounds, was almost déjà vu.

The last line swam into view in imposing capitals, and if Skulduggery's heard could've stopped, it would've.

"_STEPHANIE EDGELY"_

He bit down on a knuckle. It was real. She was dead. Her bones lay beneath his feet. Her bright life was snuffed out.

He felt a bit of him crumble away and all of those howls that lay in his throat melted, his heart was mute, and not even the wind blew. It was acceptance, he realised with surprise. First understanding, then acceptance.

So that had been her plan.

He brushed the dirt off her gravestone and stood. He placed China's bouquet at the foot of Valkyrie's grave and turned away. He never looked back.

The headstone beside Valkryrie's was new and gleaming black marble. In shining golden script, read an epitaph.

"_Beneath this stone rests a body_

_Of a woman who wasn't supposed to grow old_

_Who like so many others; the Devil fell in love with. _

_A broken dream, she was both the beginning and the end._

_CHINA SORROWS. "_

He wasn't angry. Only terribly, terribly sad.

So his soul fled and he fell apart, no more than a pile of bones and cloth that had served their purpose.

Which was somewhat of a blessing, as his throat was choked and his bones were weary.


End file.
